


i carried darkness into the forest and sliced it out

by anonymousAlchemist, emi_rose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Blood, Evisceration, Gen, Gore, Medical Trauma, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Self Surgery, Torture, death mention, generally fucked up 'cause...wonderland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 09:58:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13761708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousAlchemist/pseuds/anonymousAlchemist, https://archiveofourown.org/users/emi_rose/pseuds/emi_rose
Summary: [please read the tags/tw's before reading.]what really happened in wonderland.





	i carried darkness into the forest and sliced it out

The monster has many legs, too many eyes, all sharp claws and slavering teeth eager to get their pound of flesh. None of it is real — the constructs of black smoke dissolve and reform and rip and tear — but the injuries it causes are more than real. Lucretia is exhausted, deep down to her bones, a fatigue she can’t comprehend. She makes mistakes, silly mistakes she could have avoided, but the liches are getting the better of her. Have gotten the best of her. 

She hesitates, her shield falters, and three inky claws rip easily through the soft skin of her belly. Her muscles shred like paper. She stumbles to her knees, pressing both hands to her wound as it spills blood. 

What happens next is a blur of adrenaline. Cam disintegrates the monster while she kneels, hands slick with blood and flecks of fat. Sparkles weave through her vision. She can’t tell if this is another cruel vision by the liches or the effects of an unknown poison working their way through her veins, or if the adrenaline and blood loss are catching up to her. All she hears is the wet rush of her frantic pulse, and when she looks down, she is unsurprised to see viscera spilling out onto her hands. 

Faced with a mortal wound, Lucretia is surprisingly calm. There’s another game — she sees the liches’ mouths move, she watches Cam gesture, she should be able to hear what’s going on, but it takes all of her concentration to stay upright. 

Cam pushes her towards the exit that appeared in the wall, and she wants to reach back, but his body disappears in a flash, the liches' laughter echoing after her as she stumbles into the light, back into the clearing in the Wilds, still bleeding, loops of bowel heavy and pulsing in her hands. 

Sweat drips hot in her eyes as she pulls a needle and thread from her pack with her teeth. She knows that if she lies down, if she rests, she will die. She kneels, carefully cradling her own organs in one hand, vision swimming. The fat - her fat - glistens gold over bleeding muscles - her muscles - and she feels a sliding and lightening - another loop of intestines slips into her hand. It looks like a sausage, she thinks. She tries to take a deep breath to steady herself and can barely move her chest. She wishes for a cleric, some alcohol, a real needle, anything. But she is alone, only the smell of iron and copper accompanying her. 

She doesn’t hurt, not exactly. The edges of her wound are ragged and oozing. Her whole body is thrumming, on edge, and she floats on the adrenaline. The needle punctures flesh and she pushes intestines inside, folds fat over, holds skin together. Using all her strength, she pulls the thread through. 

She makes twenty stitches across her abdomen, from under her ribs on one side to the crest of her hip on the other. She barely has enough thread, and as dark closes in from the edges of her vision, her last thought is the faltering hope that she can bring her family home.

**Author's Note:**

> title after "I am dark, I am forest" by jennifer givhan.  
> scream @ us about taz or whatever on tumblr @anonymousalchemist and @emi--rose.


End file.
